DIY Reflective Tape Armour for Bike

Cycling during night time is dangerous. You should always be visible to speeding bikes/cars. The most cost-effective and efficient way to be visible while on-the-go is to reflect the light falling on you.

I already have a cheap bike head-light and a DIY tail light (will soon upload the instructable for it) for night time but in addition to that I needed things to shine more. Also during different weather conditions it is difficult to adapt reflective things to your outfit. I wanted something that can be worn irrespective of hot sweaty weather or a cold windy night. After brainstorming i came to this solution. Since design is iterative and this is the first iteration please bear with the low quality of the result. I will upload further iterations as they occur.

Items required:

1. reflective tape (from a local hardware shop-you can choose your favorite color/size-mine is white 1inch wide costs around INR 75 per meter or $1.25)
2. scissors
3. cardboard (for base)
4. transparent tape (daily use stationary item)
5. shoe-laces (for carrying it on your back like a back-pack)

Trucks here use a triangle red shaped reflective, I took it as my inspiration.

Cut the cardboard to your required shape/size, here a triangle. The width of the cardboard is same as your tape width. Stick the cardboard together with normal tape/glue.

On top of your cardboard stick the reflective tape.

ta-daaa !!

Mine was curving a little bit because the tape was stored in a roll, but keeping it under the mattress for a night will do away with the curve.

I used my old shoe strings to make loops on both the sides to wear it like a bag pack.

tie one end of the lace to the top and the other end to the bottom. Do the same with the other string to the other side of the triangle as in the image. And you are done.

You can adjust the height by adjusting the knots on the string.

Now you are ready to wear it in any weather(with or without jacket- since the loops have a lot of room)

The reflective tape is waterproof, though the shoe strings are not (I will figure out something for it also in the next iteration)

Till then happy riding :)